Wednesday 12 July 2017

Continued to mess around with French Indian war rules

Since my last post I have played though a few more games trying out some modifications to the draft combat rules (see the previous post). Along with a little bit of painting of some commanders and captains so I can stop using counters to show the units they are attacked to.

French Captain
French Commander

The first change was to reduce the need to track hits down from 12 to 6 hits before being eliminated. Driven by a practical need not to have two dice sitting behind a unit and have one instead, much neater with just one. This also meant halving the number of hits by using a D3 approach and rounding down so the results are 0,1,1,2,2,3 a bit average dice like and providing more consistent results.

The second change was to the volley which doubles the hits rolled. A very powerful attack for regular infantry. Muskets have a range of two squares (12" if you like free movement) and it seemed appropriate for the volleys to be used only at a range of one square (6").

The third change is to cover. When in cover the attacking range for all musketry is reduced to one square. So units attacking units uncover need to close with them and suffer an additional attack until they do so.

The fourth change is to the disruption rule which is used when a takes a hit, and also when rallying units. All units require a 3+ to pass. Line infantry when supported by another line infantry unit in an adjacent square add +1 to their dice roll, and light infantry/skirmish units get a +1 when in any cover.

British Captain

6 comments:

  1. Peter, your latest modifications look good. I especially like the reduction in maximum unit damage from 12 to 6. Much easier to track.

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    1. It is cleaner and I am finding the game working just as well.

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  2. Peter, if you like 12 hits, you can still run it off one die, just have hits 1 - 6 represented by say a yellow die and hits of 7 and more represented by a red die.

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    1. Certainly a neat approach with using different colours of dice. I have found the D3 rounded down (0,1,1,2,2,3) is working well and producing more consistent results. A bit like an average dice really.
      I want much of the real variability in the activation and disruption/rally rules.

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  3. Sounds like a good idea. Not only less fiddly but some how taking 3/6 feels more dangerous than 6/12. It's still 50% but it's only 3 hits from extinction which just doesn't seem like much.

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  4. That is true, the larger number does give a false sense of security. With that in mind, it would be interesting to use larger numbers when representing larger scale battles and smaller numbers for skirmish and smaller scale engagements. The results are the same, but just feels different.

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